When an industrial district enters a phase of regeneration, the easiest choice is to erase every trace of its productive past and replace it with a neutral, instantly recognisable language. I find the opposite approach far more interesting, and far rarer: taking that legacy as design material, without softening it, letting the original structure keep speaking through the surfaces and volumes of the new space.
In Milan’s Certosa district, an area undergoing major urban transformation, Duro Club has opened inside a former cement factory, a space dedicated to electronic music. The project, developed by Turin-based Velvet Studio — a practice working for over a decade at the intersection of architecture, interiors and industrial archaeology — interprets brutalism not as a decorative style but as a constructive principle: matter is not concealed, it is declared. Raw cement, worked with plastering techniques that make it feel alive to the touch while remaining cold to the eye, coexists with a parquet floor running through the entire space, generating a deliberate contrast between industrial rigour and domestic warmth. The bar counter is conceived as a control booth, while the DJ console cuts through the room like a gun slit, suggesting partial visibility rather than full exposure. This logic of thresholds and controlled views, reinforced by openings that run across the different rooms, builds a physical relationship between people and space before an intellectual one. The project belongs to a network linking Milan to Turin, Berlin, Paris and Lisbon, confirming how nightlife architecture can become as much a field of experimentation as fashion or design, without seeking universal consensus.
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